Chicago Columnist Illinois Leader Political Analyst Entrepreneur Business Advisor Chicago Illinois Review

Thursday, October 27, 2005

By Ralf Seiffe

Politicians understand these emotions and use them to justify all manner of behaviors, many designed to benefit the politicians more than the children.

When this happens, parents should recognize that politicians have put their interests in front of the childrens’ and recognize that anytime children are placed in second place, a threat to their welfare exists.

This is just the sort of threat Governor Rod’s “All Kids” plan represents.

Playing on the emotions of parents wanting to protect their children but faced with health care costs rising faster than even property taxes, the governor has latched on to the issue like a moray eel. If history is any indicator, he’ll suck out all the political value then, discard the issue like a dead fish.

The governor’s plan isn’t for the kids, it’s another, evident step towards Hillary Care. It is an ill-conceived, craven exploitation of children that conservatives and the Republican legislators who represent them should resist. Parents who provide for their children should be furious that the governor is using their children as political pawns.

Republican leaders, however, seemed paralyzed when the governor announced his plan. That’s understandable because Democrats have positioned this issue with, “It’s for the kids”. Whenever that phrase has surfaced in the past, Republicans who object have been painted as heartless troglodytes standing in the way of another slice of utopia.

Republicans must develop a method to deal with the pusillanimous posture of the Democrats without appearing to be so cruel.

This might be accomplished by looking to history, recognizing the state’s current fiscal position and, above all, showing that plans to socialize anything are often simply methods the opposition uses to create and preserve constituencies.

Historically, programs the state has undertaken “for the kids” have drifted towards inefficiency and underfunding as the beneficiaries demand more and their numbers grow.

Take special education, for example.

Originally pitched as a state-mandated benefit for children with extraordinary needs, it was something no legislator with a beating heart could resist.

Now, however, the constituency for these special services seems to coming more from teachers’ unions who have discovered that the extra mandates makes for some pretty cushy jobs.

“For the kids,” government keeps investing in these pathologies and creates incentives for greater production.

One cannot help but notice that the psychological testing the professional educational establishment proposed is nothing more than a method to identify even more “need”.

Moreover, to make the teachers’ jobs easier, the schools have become a distribution system for psychotropic drugs that Columbian drug lords would envy.

These facts may explain why there is so much more “need” than there was before but it does not help us understand how the kids are better off.

Students caught up in the special education maw are forever branded as somehow inferior when all the kid might have needed was some old-fashioned-but now prohibited---discipline, early on. What’s worse, special education doesn’t build a child’s future, it establishes a life-long excuse for failure and teaches some children that depending on mind-altering drugs is something one learns in school.

Explained this way, parents might become suspicious of “special education” rather than demanding more. Republicans would do well to equate the interests of the Democrats and the teachers’ unions and to also show how, in this example and others, “for the children” isn’t what it appears to be.

Another tactic Republicans might use to scuttle the governors’ plan is to accurately describe the state’s real financial position.

Just this past May, the General Assembly failed to fund the five largest public employee pension funds to the tune of at least $2 billion. Although required to pass a balanced budget, the state simply ignored these very real costs and spent the money elsewhere.

The obvious question is if we can’t pay for our current promises, how can we make new ones?

But, since “it’s for the kids” conventional wisdom says opponents of the All Kids plan must tread lightly. This tactic merely assures some form of the Democrat’s plan will succeed.

Instead, Republicans and others should strategically use the governor’s tattered public relations and key on the fact that the public recognizes “Public Official A”.

Rather than appearing to fight against the kid’s interests, they should reposition the battle as “What’s in it for Rod” and draw the inference that the real reason for this plan is not to benefit the kids but it’s another “All Rod” plot.

Finally, the most potent way to resist this Blagojevich scheme--and others to come--is to is to espouse and believe in more conservative values.

Nationally, rank-and-file Republicans are ready to take on the Democrats because they feel strength in being Republicans.

The Harriet Meir’s hub-bub demonstrates this because in large part, the Republican base’s believes they have the strength to take on Kennedy, Shumer and Leahy with a more conservative and contentious candidate that would challenge the assumptions of the welfare state.

In Illinois, it’s different; conservatives don’t have a big reason to be Republicans and that means weak party affilliation.

By not resisting All Kids, Republicans further erode their claim on conservatives, relegating them to the same position as African-Americans fill in the Democrat party. That has to change if the party is to once again represent the majority if Illinoisans.

If Republican legislators had the confidence of Illinois’ conservative voters, they could easily resist this plan to massively expand government.

The interesting trick-bag they are in is this: by failing to organize and resist this boondoggle with principled arguments, they alienate conservatives. By proposing a modified, smaller program, they just look cheap. By capitulating, they serve the Democrats’ ends.

Seems to me that there is only one long-term path to success; the veto session is a great place to start.

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Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader.